1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of cleaning devices for disposal chutes in buildings. More specifically the present invention relates to a rotating head water spraying assembly lowered into a disposal chute on a cable deployed from a portable crane, the spraying assembly receiving water through a flexible water line suspended within the chute from the spraying assembly and connected to a high power water pump and pump drive engine mounted on a truck parked at the base of the chute.
The spraying assembly includes a mounting plate, at least one water line coupler connected to and extending below the lower face of the mounting plate, a water delivery manifold and spray head rotatably mounted to a bearing structure secured to the upper face of the plate and in fluid communication with the water line through a port in the plate. These elements are mounted within a guide cage having lateral wheels for rolling against chute walls during raising and lowering of the spraying assembly and including a hook connection structure such as a ring for securing to the cable.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There previously have been cleaning devices for disposal chutes in buildings. It is recognized that garbage disposal chutes in particular, if left uncleaned, can become serious health hazards to building occupants. Recent literature on the subject has termed these buildings "sick buildings". The prior cleaning devices have generally included a water spray head suspended from a water delivery hose which is wound and unwound and deployed downwardly from a spool through an upper floor chute access hatch. Water is delivered into the hose from a pump and pump motor on the floor from which the hose is deployed. A problem with these prior devices has been that they have a reach limited to perhaps ten floors because the weight of the deployed hose and spray head place the hose at risk of failure in tension at greater lengths. As a result, in tall buildings, the hose must be rewound and the spray head retrieved after cleaning only a fraction of the entire chute length, the water pump and pump motor must be moved to another floor and the hose and spraying assembly lowered once again to clean another limited chute segment. This stage by stage process consumes many man-hours and makes chute cleaning prohibitively costly. Another problem is that, since the water pump must be located on the upper floor from which the hose is unwound, the reach is also limited in a practical way by the size of the water pump and pump station supplying the spray head. The requirement that the water pump be transportable to and from an upper building floor, and from floor to floor, severely limits the pump and power plant size. A pump and pump motor large enough to maintain high water pressure to a spray head through a hose extending dozens of floors below would be too heavy and cumbersome to carry to an upper floor.
One such prior device is disclosed in Fields, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,071,919 issued on Feb. 7, 1978 for a waste chute cleaning apparatus. Fields, et al., is designed for a square cross-section chimney and would not operate properly in the standard circular cross-section waste disposal chutes. The Fields, et al. spray head spins at only between ten and two hundred revolutions per minute. A rotating spray head is disclosed in Brandon, U.S. Pat. No. 3,994,310 issued on Nov. 30, 1976.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a building disposal chute cleaning apparatus which can suitably clean a chute extending down through at least sixty-five floors in a single lowering without danger of structural failure and spray head disconnection, for maximum cleaning in minimal working time.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus which receives water from a large capacity pump and pump power plant positioned at the ground floor of a building and delivering water through a vertical line hundreds of feet in extended length, so that the pump and power plant do not need to be carried to an upper floor of the building. This permits the present inventive spray head to spin at a speed in excess of four thousand revolutions per minute and to produce in excess of five thousand pounds per square inch of water pressure.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus which includes a spray head guide structure for smooth and unobstructed spray head movement through a waste-caked chute, in both horizontal and vertical chute directions.
It is finally an object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus is highly durable and relatively inexpensive to manufacture.